Commenting

I just happened to stumble upon a blog with an interesting current post, so I read it. The blog author presented a particular topic, however, I thought it left the door open for a reader to bring up another topic—homosexuality. The first few people who commented danced around it, or maybe “lesbian” never entered their minds at all. Well, it entered mine. I thought, “Do I comment on the intended subject or bravely mention the controversial subject or not comment at all?”

I commented—second option.

Mine was not the first comment. That person had the opportunity to begin and steer the conversation in a certain direction and interestingly, she and the second commenter sensed that the post would evoke emotional views which would provide them with some entertaining combat.

“Can’t wait for the comments on this one,” she wrote.

The second commenter followed with (her exact words, spelling, and punctuation),“I know right! The minute I saw the post I had to run an get some snacks…::munch munch munch::. Waiting for the shinanigans…”

(First time I’ve seen the periods and colons combined. Another emoticon?)

Somewhere down the line, someone used the word “tomboy.” She was being a little careful, I suspect.

But I was in a mood for more depth, so I left my comment which was purely “academic.”  Still, someone questioned my thoughts, implying that my comment was misguided.  Her words were respectful, though, prompting me to answer; and then I received a sort of, “Now I understand what you were saying,” back from her. I responded once more telling her that I enjoyed our interesting exchange and that we might meet again on this blog.

Then… someone else commented on our thread with something funny, but ugly… towards moi! I could not resist a final comment: “Grow up,” with an added smiley face, of course.

That was my time to exit. I did not and will not go back to the post because Anonymous may have retorted and I see no reason to allow myself to get upset by Anonymous.

Prior to this blogging episode, I’d been thinking about the three commenting formats that Blogger offers, wondering if I should switch to the Embedded format, the one that has “reply” written under each posted comment allowing threaded comments—readers replying to other readers’ comments. Most of the time, instead, I’ve seen this used mainly by the blog author to respond to individual comments/people; probably because my blogging circle are people like me who are not getting a thousand hits per day (or are you?!) with the accompanied five hundred comments per post from anonymous commenters or people with names like catwoman, free to say the first thing that comes to their minds. In my circle, we are passionate, too, but we leave out the “I’d like to beat up on you factor,” (most of the time) like my “Grow up,” comment; albeit, that was quite mild. It’s so easy to get sucked into that when you are a stranger to a blog.

In fairness to popular blogs, many are peaceful places to go; like The Pioneer Woman, I would imagine. But if you’re reading news blogs or blogs of those who have an “agenda,” your emotions might spike a bit more than it would over a recipe and you may be compelled to go through the tortuous method (becoming a member of the sight) to leave a comment. Personally, I like a good debate on a hot topic once in a while.

Back to my blog’s comment setting: I’ll leave it as is for now, which is the Full page option, because I respond to your comments via your email address instead of on the post (when your profile is set up to attach your email address to your comment). Someday, when a post of mine goes viral and the, uhhh, hundreds of you want to duke it out, I’ll change my setting to Embedded, which is set up for back and forth dialogue.

Oh—to those of you who would like to comment on any of my posts by email, feel free. I’m at noteforanita@gmail.com. Write what you like, sign your name (be it Joe, Jane, catwoman, or anonymous), and I’ll cut and paste it onto the blog for you—without your email address. Be bold! J

When you read a post and want to write a comment but you don’t, why?  Are there certain topics that you won’t “touch” …regardless?